That's the Spirit

Gene Lockhart (Mr Cawthorne) is a very strict father to June Vincent (Libby). She has never experienced laughter and goes to a Music Hall to experience what it's like. Well, she loves it and she also falls in love with performer Jack Oakie (Slim) much to the fury of her father. However, at the birth of their daughter, the Angel of Death comes calling and someone is taken away only to return as a spirit years later to help daughter Peggy Ryan (Sheila) in her pursuit of happiness.

This film was a pleasant surprise as it had the potential to be awful. It delivers a sprinkle of everything – comedy, scariness, dancing & singing. And the cast are alright. We get a ghost who returns to Earth with squeaky shoes, some great dancing by Peggy Ryan and her boyfriend Johnny Coy (Martin Jr), a great song – "How Come You Do Me Like You Do?" I must add at this point that the other songs are all rubbish. We also get a genuinely scary Angel of Death as played by Karen Randle. She turns up more than once and each appearance is frightening stuff. Very atmospheric.

It's a comedy that mostly entertains. We get a few misses, especially the sequence where Lockhart reverts to childhood antics but there are many sequences that offset this blip.

A real joy and big surprise of entertainment. I couldn't imagine a "B" Universal musical fantasy from the 40's holding my interest but was I shocked to find it funny, moving and musically A-1. Peggy Ryan is fabulous as the grand daughter of crotchety old Gene Lockart (wonderful in the role) and daughter of the lovely June Vincent. Jack Oakie has one of his best roles as the deceased dad who comes back after 15 years to right a few wrongs and protect his daughter. Don't miss this one if it is ever on Television. It should definitely have a DVD release. Please UNIVERSAL, open those vaults and release some of your hidden classics.

That's the Spirit (Charles Lamont, 1945) is an absolutely delightful ghost comedy, among the best of the succession made in the '30s and '40s. Jack Oakie plays a vaudeville performer in the early-1900s who gives up his life for that of his wife (June Vincent), as she suffers complications during the birth of their daughter. Unfortunately, he's seen shuffling off this mortal coil with a not unattractive (though bloody creepy) woman who just happens to be the spectre of death. Oakie spends the next 15 years begging to be sent back to Earth to mend his wife's broken heart, and finally heavenly bureaucrat Buster Keaton relents, allowing the chubby comic a week to clear his name and rescue the happiness of his hoofing offspring (Peggy Ryan), herself desperate to climb out from beneath the thumb of grandfather Gene Lockhart.

The film wears its heady sentiment lightly, aided by Oakie's unexpectedly poignant, powerful turn, and there's top support from peerless, pug-faced villain Lockhart, Keaton - well-used for once in a talkie - and Vincent, in a quiet, affecting performance. Ryan, well-known to '40s audiences as part of a double-act with future Singin' in the Rain dancer Donald O'Connor, is also ideal in her key role, starring in a handful of superlative numbers alongside Johnny Coy, with How Come You Do Me Like You Do the absolute standout. That's the Spirit isn't as sophisticated or as slickly-plotted as - say - Here Comes Mr Jordan, placing a greater emphasis on sheer silliness, but I found it completely winning, and was taken aback by Oakie's touching central characterisation.

That's The Spirit is my favorite movie from that category of fantasy films that involve spirits or angels visiting the Earth to influence mortals, films like The Bishop's Wife, A Guy Named Joe, Beyond Tomorrow, and Here Comes Mr. Jordan. This one begins circa 1900 A.D. Gene Lockhart (A Christmas Carol, Miracle On 34th Street) is perfect as Jasper Cawthorne, an austere patriarch who forbids his daughter Libby (June Vincent) to see a show that includes such base vices as music and laughter. Libby sneaks out to see the show and falls in love at first sight with one of the performers, Steve Gogarty (Jack Oakie, in one of his best roles). Andy Devine (Island In The Sky) plays Gogarty's partner Martin Wilde. When Cawthorne learns of his daughter's involvement, he takes legal action to shut down the show, but discovering his daughter's presence backstage he insists she and Gogarty get married. Within the year Libby is giving birth to a daughter, Sheila, but the doctor indicates complications are arising during labor. In the waiting room with Cawthorne and Wilde, Gogarty prays that if anything's to happen to her, let it happen to him instead. The angel of death, on her way into the birthing room, hears his prayer, changes course, and leads Gogarty to Heaven. Cawthorne only sees her as a mysterious woman seducing his son-in-law. In Heaven Gogarty protests to a clerk, "L.M.," played by the great film comic Buster Keaton (The General, In The Good Old Summertime), who says he can't even consider sending him back to Earth until he's completed training. This takes 18 years. In the meantime Sheila grows up under Cawthorne's oppression. When Gogarty complains again, L.M. monitors Sheila's environment, agrees that Cawthorne is unfair to her, especially with his opinion of Gogarty, and sends Gogarty back to Earth, invisible to all except his daughter, who's never seen him before. As Gogarty's spirit attempts to guide the people surrounding Sheila to do the right thing, the film is filled with delightful humor and uplifting musical numbers, with a few poignant moments in the plot. The cast is sublime. Dancer Johnny Coy plays Wilde's son and romantic interest for Sheila, in a rare filmed appearance - he only performed on film about a dozen times. Arthur Treacher and Irene Ryan (who went on to play Granny on The Beverly Hillbillies) are splendid as the butler, Masters, and maid, Bilson. Trivia: The plot is similar to Rodger's & Hammerstein's Carousel, in which Gene Lockhart also had a role 11 years later.

This is a great film about a stuffy family who is ruled by an even stuffier patriarch (Jasper). His daughter gets involved with a flashy showman (Oakie) and he "dies" while his wife is having their first child. He is taken up to heaven and repeatedly requests to come back to Earth and finally gets his wish! After he returns to Earth, he tries to help his daughter to find her own life. This is not only a beautifully done fantasy, but is also a very funny comedy with good musical score. (Heaven just happened to give him squeaky shoes to wear :)